Hmm, Rawshooter makes everything and everyone look like plastic, DPP doesn't remove color noise and doesn't resolve a lot of detail and the best color in that program is too neutral for me, I don't use ACR, but, C1 is the absolute best for skintones and overall color, IMO. Very consistent results. I have tried to like the other programs, but I always went back to C1, and I'm staying with it (until I get a Mac and try out Raw Developer? Maybe. )
I find the portrait picture style of DPP to be horrible too, especially for skin tones. But neutral works just fine for me.
Actually, Neutral is a Picture Style. I find Neutral requires too much post-processing to get the look I like. I prefer Standard much of the time for for portraits, but use a custom version of Landscape for, well, landscapes. I keep it saved on the C setting on the command dial. But yeah, straight Portrait is terrible for fair skin but not too bad for really dark skin.
I've actually had the opposite problem. I've been shooting primarily in Faithful and Neutral (JPG) and people say my pictures aren't "warm enough". The cool cast apparently looks wrong to many people, but looks good to me.
So I recently switched to RAW processing with DPP to give it a trial run and find that "Standard" works better for people than "Portrait". In fact, Portrait is almost always too red. Dunno if it's all saturation either, as it seems to be color temperature more than anything.
In fact, what I'd like to see in DPP is the ability to set Portrait or Landscape or whatever, and then be able to manually adjust the color temperature relative to that point. But the way it works is you get color temp. or color profile -- mutually exclusive.
I really suck at getting skin tones corrected in Photoshop, so I've pretty much got to get it right in DPP before going there. I also find that the amount of redness varies depending upon lighting conditions at the time (i.e. regardless of color profile chosen).
Pondria wrote:
The ACR needs to be calibrated for your camera. And I'm very glad that ACR has the calibration capability.
To add, we don't need to pursue the true colors. But most of us are serious enough about the photography that we need to establish the way to get the reasonably correct colors. We cannot purely rely on whatever the raw converter gives or what you see on the screen.
Here is my recommendation:
1. Invest $$$ to buy the Colorimeter device to calibrate your monitor. It is well worth the money, probably the Best investment in photography. There are pretty cheap ones, too. But the value is high. Once you do that, you will realize how widely the monitors are different to the point that it doesn't make sense to talk about colors on the uncalibrated monitors.
2. Buy a Macbeth color chart and calibrate your Camera. ACR has pretty effective calibration capability. It makes BIG difference.
Here is a good link to it. http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/acr/
Without having done 1&2 above, just tweaking the colors in Photoshop relying on your eyes is pretty senseless.
Here is my recommendation:
1. Invest $$$ to buy the Colorimeter device to calibrate your monitor. It is well worth the money, probably the Best investment in photography. There are pretty cheap ones, too. But the value is high. Once you do that, you will realize how widely the monitors are different to the point that it doesn't make sense to talk about colors on the uncalibrated monitors.
2. Buy a Macbeth color chart and calibrate your Camera. ACR has pretty effective calibration capability. It makes BIG difference.
Here is a good link to it. http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/acr/
Without having done 1&2 above, just tweaking the colors in Photoshop relying on your eyes is pretty senseless. ...Show more →
Not just color, but even exposure is hit and miss without a calibrated monitor. I fully agree--until the monitor is calbrated, there is no point discussing any part of the issue.
Ok, so this thread has taken some surprising turns. Fixing files with red skin is now easy (thanks again to all of you who took the time to help). Files batched in ACR now pop completely neutral except skin is still moderately red. I am going to check out capture One. Looked at some high end fashion magazines today and was astounded to see just how many hi end spreads showed caucasian talent with brownish skin. In case anyone is interested this is what I'm doing to remove red from open files.
Hey thanks for bringing that up i just got my 5D and i do notice the red skin tones, now i only did a few shots of my wife and i see it in the studio and outside
now what is dpp?